The exemplary embodiment relates to medical diagnosis and finds particular application in connection with a system and method for providing different levels of assistance to healthcare workers for medical diagnosis.
Many people suffer from a variety of preventable and treatable medical conditions, such as diseases. In part, this is because patients, caregivers, and health workers do not have access to the information and knowledge they need, when they need it, to make appropriate decisions and thus provide appropriate treatment. Many health workers could be more effective when supported by a clinically-skilled health workforce. However, the number of clinically skilled health workers is limited, especially in very specific domains and in some locations.
Recently, social medical platforms have been developed which facilitate the exchange of information between users, and in particular, between medical practitioners. In some cases, users can ask for help or advice from others. For example, medical practitioners are able to share photographs, laboratory test results, imaging results, EKG data, and the like, so that other practitioners can contribute to the diagnosis. However the number of experts that are specialists in a given field and the time they have available to assist other practitioners is often limited, when compared to the number of cases for which help is needed.
There remains a need for a system and method that can provide health workers with information to assist them in making a diagnosis by providing access to information and experts using a common query interface.